Republican Kevin McCarthy finally emerges US House speaker – Newstrends
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Republican Kevin McCarthy finally emerges US House speaker

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2 years ago

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Republican congressman Kevin McCarthy has been elected speaker of the  United States House of Representatives, overcoming the opposition of right-wing dissenters who had derailed for several days his bid to lead the chamber.

It took 15 rounds of voting for McCarthy to win, despite his party having a majority in the chamber.

BBC News reports that this came after a dramatic pressure campaign played out live on the House floor as party rebel Matt Gaetz was urged to vote for McCarthy.

The Florida congressman was among six holdouts who relented late on Friday.

Earlier, amid heated scenes in the chamber, Gaetz had almost come to blows with Rep Mike Rogers – a supporter of McCarthy.

The Alabama congressman had to be physically restrained by colleagues as he bellowed and jabbed his finger at Gaetz.

The Speaker sets the House agenda and oversees legislative business. The post is second in line to the presidency after the US vice-president.

Speaking after his confirmation, McCarthy wrote on Twitter: “I hope one thing is clear after this week: I will never give up. And I will never give up for you, the American people.”

McCarthy told reporters that former President Trump had helped him get the final votes: “I don’t think anybody should doubt his influence”.

“He was with me from the beginning… he would call me and he would call others,” he said.

US President Joe Biden congratulated McCarthy for his win and said he looked forward to co-operating with the Republican Party.

“The American people expect their leaders to govern in a way that puts their needs above all else, and that is what we need to do now,” he said.

Republicans have already pledged to launch investigations into Biden’s family business dealings and administration.

In a remarkable turnaround in the 12th round of voting, McCarthy was able to persuade 14 Republican holdouts to cast their vote for him. A 15th rebel followed suit for the 13th ballot.

After the 13th ballot was adjourned, McCarthy insisted to reporters that he would “have the votes” to take the speakership on the next round.

But the California congressman was still three votes short of the 217 he needed to take the prized gavel, and in chaotic and dramatic scenes, he again failed to win on the 14th ballot.

The dissidents included members of the House Freedom Caucus, who argue that Mr McCarthy is not conservative enough to lead them as they work to try to oppose Democratic President Joe Biden’s agenda.

McCarthy has offered various concessions to the rebels, including a seat on the influential rules committee, which sets the terms for debate on legislation in the chamber.

He also agreed to lower the threshold for triggering a vote on whether to unseat the Speaker, to only one House member, leading to the possibility that the Republican coalition could easily fracture again even after McCarthy’s victory.

As the last politician on the roll – Montana’s Ryan Zinke – voted, the House floor erupted in applause as it became clear Mr McCarthy had finally emerged victorious.

McCarthy hugged other representatives and signed autographs, but across the room the Democrats’ side was completely silent. No democrat applauded.

Senior Democratic Party lawmakers accused McCarthy of ceding power to an extreme wing of his party and likened the stand-off to the riot exactly two years ago on Capitol Hill by Trump supporters who disrupted Mr Biden’s certification as president.

“Two years ago insurrectionists failed to take over the Capitol,” Congressman Eric Swalwell wrote on Twitter. “Tonight Kevin McCarthy let them take over the Republican Party.”

And Virginia Congressman Don Beyer referred to the angry scenes among Republicans that followed the 14th count.

“Unsettling that this process ends in threats of violence in the House Chamber, on this of all days,” he said. “Maybe it didn’t determine the outcome, but that is no way to conduct the people’s business. A dark and sobering moment will probably be remembered long after this session ends.”

After finally after being handed the Speaker’s gavel Mr McCarthy hugged House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries

The minority Democrats had continued to vote in unison for their leader, New York’s Hakeem Jeffries, the first black person ever to lead a party in Congress.

Friday was the first day that McCarthy’s vote count actually surpassed that of Mr Jeffries.

McCarthy opened his acceptance speech joking; “that was easy, eh?”. He outlined a range of Republican policy objectives that included lowering prices, securing the US-Mexico border and combatting what he described as a “woke indoctrination”.

He said one of his primary goals was to stop “wasteful Washington spending”.

The lawmakers began leaving the Congress around 02:00 local time (07:00 GMT) on Saturday morning – 14 hours after the gavel first rang at noon.

Not since 1860 in the build-up to the American Civil War has the lower chamber of Congress voted this many times to pick a speaker. Back then it took 44 rounds of ballots.

In November’s midterm elections, Republicans won the House by a weaker-than-expected margin of 222 to 212. Democrats retained control of the Senate.

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Democrats drag Trump to court over election overhaul order

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2 days ago

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April 1, 2025

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U.S President Donald Trump

Democrats drag Trump to court over election overhaul order

The Democratic Party has sued the Trump administration over an attempt to impose sweeping changes on the election systems, including requiring citizenship proof to register to vote and limiting mail-in ballot counting.

In a lawsuit filed Monday, the Democratic Party asked a federal court to block the executive order, which prevents states from counting mail-in ballots that arrive after election day. The president’s directive also requires proof of citizenship to be presented — through documents such as a passport — when registering to vote.

“The President does not get to dictate the rules of our elections,” said the lawsuit filed in Washington by the Democratic National Committee, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and others.

“The Executive Order seeks to impose radical changes on how Americans register to vote, cast a ballot, and participate in our democracy—all of which threaten to disenfranchise lawful voters and none of which is legal,” it added.

After signing the March 25 order, called “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections”, US President Donald Trump described it as “the farthest-reaching executive action taken” to secure US elections.

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Trump, who does not acknowledge his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, has long questioned the integrity of the US electoral system. He has repeatedly and baselessly amplified conspiracy theories about massive election fraud in the United States, particularly involving absentee voting.

Legal scholars swiftly denounced Trump’s election order as an abuse of presidential power that could prevent millions of eligible voters from casting ballots.

Advocacy groups led by the Campaign Legal Center and State Democracy Defenders Fund filed a separate lawsuit on Monday against the same executive order.

“The president’s executive order is an unlawful action that threatens to uproot our tried-and-tested election systems and silence potentially millions of Americans,” Danielle Lang of the Campaign Legal Center said in a statement.

“It is simply not within the president’s authority to set election rules by executive decree, especially when they would restrict access to voting in this way.”

Democrats drag Trump to court over election overhaul order

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Iran warns US against attack, threatens with nuclear weapon

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2 days ago

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April 1, 2025

By

Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei

Iran warns US against attack, threatens with nuclear weapon

Iran would have no alternative but to acquire a nuclear weapon if attacked by the United States or its allies, an adviser to the country’s supreme leader warned on Monday, following a threat by Donald Trump.

The comments came hours after the supreme leader himself, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had promised to hit back if the US president made good on his threat to bomb the Islamic republic if it did not agree to a deal to curb its nuclear programme.

“We are not moving towards (nuclear) weapons, but if you do something wrong in the Iranian nuclear issue, you will force Iran to move towards that because it has to defend itself,” Khamenei’s adviser Ali Larijani said in an interview with state TV.

“Iran does not want to do this, but… (it) will have no choice,” he added.

“If at some point you (the US) move towards bombing by yourself or through Israel, you will force Iran to make a different decision.”

In an interview on Saturday, Trump had said “there will be bombing” if Iran did not agree to a new nuclear deal, according to NBC News, which said he also threatened to punish Tehran with what he called “secondary tariffs”.

Trump’s language represented a sharpening of his rhetoric, though it was not clear whether he was threatening bombing by US planes alone or perhaps in an operation coordinated with another country, possibly Iran’s nemesis Israel.

“They threaten to do mischief,” Khamenei said of the remarks during a speech on Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

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“If it is carried out, they will definitely receive a strong counterattack.”

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei, in a post on X, said the threat was “a shocking affront to the very essence of international peace and security”.

Baqaei warned of unspecified “consequences” should the United States choose a path of “violence”.

– ‘Glass room’ –

A statement on Monday also said the foreign ministry summoned the charge d’affaires of the Swiss embassy, which represents Washington’s interests in Iran, “following the threats by the US president”.

“The Americans have at least 10 bases in the region around Iran, and they have 50,000 troops,” warned General Amirali Hajizadeh, commander of the aerospace force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

“Someone who is in a glass room shouldn’t throw stones at anyone,” the man in charge of Iran’s ballistic missile programme threatened on state television Monday.

Since taking office in January, Trump has reinstated his “maximum pressure” policy, which in his first term saw the United States withdraw from a landmark agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme and reimpose sanctions on Tehran.

Western countries including the United States have long accused Iran of pursuing a nuclear weapon, which Tehran has denied, insisting its enrichment activities were solely for peaceful purposes.

The 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers required Iran to limit its nuclear ambitions in exchange for sanctions relief.

– ‘Indirect’ channel –

On March 7, Trump said he had written to Khamenei to call for nuclear negotiations and warn of possible military action if Tehran refused.

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The letter was delivered to Tehran on March 12 by UAE presidential adviser Anwar Gargash, Iranian news agency Fars reported at the time.

On Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the country had delivered a response via intermediary Oman, without detailing its content.

Araghchi said Iran would not engage in direct talks “under maximum pressure and the threat of military action”.

In his remarks, however, the minister left open the door for “indirect negotiations”.

According to NBC, Trump also said US and Iranian officials were “talking,” but he did not give details.

President Masoud Pezeshkian on Sunday said Khamenei, who as supreme leader has the final say in major state policies, had permitted indirect talks.

Oman has served as an intermediary in the past, in the absence of US-Iranian diplomatic relations severed after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

On Monday, Araghchi said the United States had received Iran’s letter.

“We have been informed by our friends in Oman that the letter has reached its destination and has been read.”

Beyond its nuclear programme, the West also accuses Iran of using proxy forces to expand its influence in the region, a charge Tehran rejects.

“There is only one proxy force in this region, and that is the corrupt usurper Zionist regime,” Khamenei said, calling for Israel to be “eradicated”.

Iran warns US against attack, threatens with nuclear weapon

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‘Bitcoin could replace U.S. Dollar as global currency’

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3 days ago

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March 31, 2025

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‘Bitcoin could replace U.S. Dollar as global currency’

BlackRock Chairman and CEO Larry Fink acknowledged in his 2025 annual letter that Bitcoin could challenge the U.S. dollar’s status as the global reserve currency.

“If the U.S. doesn’t get its debt under control, if deficits keep ballooning, America risks losing that position to digital assets like Bitcoin,” Fink wrote in BlackRock’s March 2025 letter.

The statement marks a significant shift from the head of the world’s largest asset manager, recognizing digital assets as potential alternatives to the dollar.

Throughout the letter, Fink mentioned Bitcoin seven times and the dollar eight times, signaling the growing relevance of digital currencies in financial discourse.

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BlackRock’s letter frames Bitcoin as both an innovation and a risk, warning that if investors view it as a more stable long-term store of value than the dollar, it could undermine U.S. financial primacy.

Fink stressed that “two things can be true at the same time,” referring to both innovation and risk in digital asset development.

Beyond Bitcoin, Fink positioned tokenization as a transformative force for capital markets, likening it to the shift from postal mail to email.

He argued that tokenized assets could bypass financial intermediaries and democratize access to investments through fractional ownership and improved voting systems.

BlackRock also highlighted India’s digital identity system as a model for secure transactions, with over 90% of Indians verifying smartphone transactions—a benchmark for future tokenized economies.

‘Bitcoin could replace U.S. Dollar as global currency’

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